Yesterday I finally got around to starting the creation of my Au Ra's backstory, and that's when I noticed something.

Final Fantasy XIV: Garlean rule on Othard

Yesterday I finally got around to starting the creation of my Au Ra's backstory, and that's when I noticed something.

Tbh, I have a hard time wrapping my head around how Garlemald's rule influences the Xaela tribes' lives. From what I found, Xaela live in nomadic tribes all over Othard, and all we know about those tribes are things that have barely anything to do with the Garleans. It wouldn't just prove hard to actually track them all down (for example, the Arulaq had no contact with ANYONE for 200 years, so when they were found again recently, Garlemald was a completely foreign thing to them?) and keep control over them, we literally lack any evidence that their lives are different from how they used to be before Garlemald invaded their continent:

Now ofc, that doesn't hold true for the Raen's settlements and on the example of Doma we directly hear about their struggles under Garlean rule, but I'm specifically interested in the nomadic Xaela. It just seems a lot harder to keep control over them than over city states with permanent settlements and a former ruling class in place that could be taken over, like it is the case for the Raen.

Yes, Garlemald has airships; but tracking down little groups of people moving about on a vast, monotone land they blend in with, seems like an awfully hard and pointless thing to do.

On the lodestone, we have this tidbit of info:

In 1.x, we saw that happen with children from Ala Mhigo. We also know Garlemald takes the able-bodied men and women of occupied regions to work for them in their military. But nothing about the Xaela's known lore so far hints on a lack of healthy young war-ready people Especially since some of those clans would literally vanish because they consist of nothing but such individuals..

I tried looking at the backstories of some known ingame Xaela (Sidurgu and Alaqa) and both actually experienced most cruelty at the hands of Eorzeans, namely Ishgardians, who thought them to be linked to dragons in some way and barely reveal anything about the reason their family left Othard to begin with.

Knowing that a lot of Xaela lore is based on Mongolian culture around the early Middle Ages I looked into that, but all I found was that normal people mostly cared about their livestock and not about foreign rulers trying to take over or expanding their borders (mainly because they didn't care about borders in the first place) and at most were forced to pay tributes in form of animals or children if they met with some official military - but again, 25 years under Garlean rule and there is no lack of fighters in the clans, and we never see any Au Ra in the Garleans' forces in Eorzea either (although tbh, that doesn't have to mean much since it could be too much of a hassle to bring them over to a different continent).

I'm aware my analysis might be completely wrong though

Sooo...do we have any idea if the Garlean rule affects a nomadic Xaela's life at all? If yes, how much?

Related News

10
Aug

That mantra still applies to FFXIV

That mantra still applies to FFXIV. It's the internet. Just expect more of the latter. It stinks, yeah, but people take advantage of anonymity. And their insecurities show a lot when they're stressed

FFXIV Housing Solutions: Can we do it together?

Airship Workshop Personal Houses that are opened to allow other members of the community can band together and have access to the airship features from FFXIV Heavensward without forcing players to be in a guild.